Don’t Write Off a Third-Party Challenge to the Democrats
Voters quite simply do not like the Democrats. The Democratic Party brand is complete trash. Although the structural barriers to a break from the Dems are real, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
A third party representing working-class Americans could be useful in working past Democratic Party dysfunction. Not to mention, there’s clearly an untapped appetite among voters for such a movement. (Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)
Should we euthanize the Democratic Party?
It’s a question Les Leopold is pondering as he looks out upon the American political landscape. He doesn’t quite advocate a swift and complete death for the party of the ass. But he is convinced that the party is no longer capable of advancing a working-class agenda.
A self-described third-party activist, Leopold refuses to fall in with the conventional — and convention-preserving — wisdom that, as he says in the book, “American history and the structure of our political system ensure that third parties will fail, always,” and that we need to “face up to these facts, and realize that reforming the Democrats is the only game in town. It’s not always pretty, and it’s not always pure, but fusion and putting up progressive challengers in Democratic primaries . . . are as good as it gets.”
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